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| The patio with a view, but it was SO COLD. |
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| How we felt at the end of the night. |
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| Entrance to the party. |
Nearly into March and I have yet to feel the usual reawakening that a new year brings. I traveled nearly the entire month of December returning home on January 8. My travels took me to Guatemala for 10 days... (work related). Hours upon my return, the traveling continued into Munich, Germany, Berlin, Bremen, Utrecht, Amsterdam and Glasgow, Scotland.
I wanted to return to talk about my fabulous NYE in Amsterdam. I know what you're thinking... NYE... in Amsterdam....
A friend from college now lives outside of Amsterdam. When our travels were confirmed we let him know we wanted to visit and celebrate the new year together. The pressure was on for my friend, DLV to get a plan together, while fully entrusting him with the course of action.
Going from Germany to Amsterdam is pretty easy. Inter country trains are frequent and relatively inexpensive. It's best to buy train tickets about 3 days prior to travel. The only trouble with the trains, so I was told, is that they have a tendency to have delays. Unfortunately for us, this turned out to be true... we had a connection to catch, which we also missed. We were 90 miles from Utrecht and there were no more trains. Rule number 1: don't panic– and we didn't. We were still in Germany and the customer service office was open and incredibly accommodating. They provided us with a voucher to catch a cab on their tab. We were completely shocked to be provided a voucher for a 90 mile cab ride!
After that eventful travel, we made it and DLV made TACOS! A delicacy not often found in Germany or the Netherlands.
We stayed up late catching up talking about where we were each from (none present were native to the Netherlands).
The next morning was prepping for our anticipated long night out.
OOTN
As you can guess, it was quite cold (for us Californians) but overall a mild European winter for the natives. I was ready with a fabulous skirt from Free People. A bit more than I would normally pay for a skirt, but it was WELL WORTH IT... NO REGRETS.
The key to my success and well being for the night was to layer to stay warm. Wearing a maxi skirt was perfect for layering underneath. I wore 2 sets of leggings, thick socks and Madewell x Saucony sneakers. I had my coat and scarf in hand to lock in total warmth. I had my Madewell crossbody all night- it was small enough to carry all night but big enough for my camera.
To say the least, I felt like a princess. With the many compliments on the fabulous skirt I flaunted and even being asked by a Brazilian man to switch outfits, I was full of NYE energy.
The Plans
So we started around 7pm at the
SkyLounge at the top of the Double Tree Hotel. As you can imagine it was ridiculously busy, but the advantage was the view. We drank, danced and ate awaiting for the midnight hour. When it came... we had the best views of the hundreds of fireworks. It was such a beautiful moment, that the man next to me got on one knee and proposed to his significant other!
Soon after midnight it was off to the party. We just had to get there. Be mindful, in a big city during big events like this, cabs go black. They stop charging by the meter and charge by the person. Most cabs that we encountered wanted 10 euro per person (mind you we were going less than 3 miles)! We ended up negotiating with an Uber drive for a cash price (do this at your own risk). Thrown by
Pacific Parc, the steam punk party did not disappoint. There were themed rooms, a mini ferris wheel (inside!) and cheap drink tokens. I never left the dance floor.
We danced until well after 6 am.
My friend made an awesome video of our night. Watch for yourself here:
https://youtu.be/IHTCW1awbVY
I wouldn't mind doing this all over again.
